I'm so glad you ultimately ended up like A Memory Called Empire — I loved it so, so, so much. It was the poetry scene that did it for me: I was already in love with the book, but that just made me fall even more in love with it. I love what it says about empire, and power, and powerlessness, and what it feels like to be on the edge of empire, exoticised and othered, but still looking in, still speaking the empire's language and loving its culture — and the pain of that.